Perc Trax vs. Blank Records

Wunderbar news, this.

Two of my favourite Japanese DJ cum producers are getting together with a certain UK industrial/techno enfant terrible named Ali Wells - better known as Perc - here in Tokyo at Module on 24 June.

Ali runs the appropriately-named Perc Trax, which has been one of my preferred labels over the past few years, and I recently interviewed him for the Techno How? site.

The two Japanese guys are Jin Hiyama and his brother Go. Jin is a good mate of mine (he played at my book launch in March), and I interviewed Go a couple of months ago here.

This should be an absolutely brilliant gig; shame is that it shapes up I may not be in town to actually appreciate it...

Address: 150-0042東京都渋谷区宇田川町34-6M&IビルB1F/B2F
Cost: ¥3,000 on the door.

Dry Fruit Japan-style

Aside from this wayward blog I also get to run an equally aberrant record label called IF? Records, through which we release a bunch of electronic-inclined stuff on vinyl and through digital means.

Most recently we've been able to get stuff out by people like James Ruskin, Luke's Anger, Dave Tarrida, Paul Birken, Wyndell Long, Ben Mill, Dave Angel, Kultrun, Justin Berkovi, Mijk van Dijk, DJ Hi-Shock, Koda, Ben Pest, Bill Youngman, Enclave, E383, Donk Boys, Jammin' Unit and Justin Robertson - people across the board whom I respect and cherish as musos.

Last week the label put out something I've wanted to do for ages: a release focused solely around some of the best Japanese artists currently cutting sounds.

The source material was a track called 'Dry Fruit', put together by the somewhat enigmatic Tsuyoshi K (he doesn't tell anyone what the 'K' stands for), who started out making fringe, left-of-centre electro-pop stuff as Gadget Cassette but more recently changed name to Cut Bit Motorz and at the same time began pushing through more tech-house related sounds.

Funnily enough, even though we live in the same city and constantly email each other as well as remix each other's tunes, we haven't ever actually met.

But that didn't stop us releasing a digital slab of mixes of 'Dry Fruit', in which we got on board some of his more experienced Japanese peers - DJ Wada (Co-Fusion), Toshiyuki Yasuda (Robo*Brazileira), Takashi Watanabe (DJ Warp) and Tomi Chair - to do the rejigs, making it an entirely Japanese putsch that criss-crosses eclectic, tech, electro, house and (dare I say it) a marginally more progressive stance.

Truth is I really dig working with this elusive digital mate and Tsuyoshi is breaking ground with his own work (he recently remixed the Dead Agenda track 'Chaos Theory' as well as Tomi Chair's 'Stroboscope') and you'll probably brush up against the guy more often in future outside of this obscure forum.


"Regarding digital, there are great outlets online through which to dig up music from all over the world, and then share it about - which is fantastic," Tsuyoshi espouses.

"With this EP I've been most surprised about these people actually choosing to do the remixes in the first place, and it's exciting. I want you to listen to them by all means."

Propaganda bomb out.

Like A Sturgeon

Think I mentioned on this blog somewhere at some self-indulgent stage that I released an album through Auricular Records in the US last month, and for once under my real name instead of hiding behind an alias.

Anyway, just for another free plug it's called Hackneyed Record Crate (thanks yet again to the people at Auricular for supporting these kinds of disparate, inadvertently eclectic sounds!) and today I got motivated enough to pull the finger out and hack together a video clip to go with one of the tracks, 'Like A Sturgeon', which I did a while back in collaboration with American noise guru (and a mate of mine) Noisepsalm.

Hackneyed Record Crate

Well, I have a brand new album out but some of it is not so new at all, while other bits are recent ploddings; basically it's a collection of personal eclectic nuggets that scrape around electronica, sampling, industrial moments, and whatever else I could throw into the mix.

The LP is titled Hackneyed Record Crate and it's my third release through US experimental label Auricular Records.

Here's what Auricular themselves have to say about the release - probably better than anything I'd try to conjure up here:

"Point the remote control at the Andrez Bergen digital Victrola of doom and scan the airwaves of all time and space and join us for the last waltz of the mechanodroids on the event horizon of the Slash Cut and Loop universe. Or sip a cup of tea and sing along quietly to yourself with the curtains drawn. All samples have been sanitized for your protection."


Anyway, there're 16 tracks all up and you can listen to sample sounds of these right HERE if you're still somehow inspired to do so.

Time Wasters

I have a couple of excuses for not updating this blog lately as much as I'd like to.

While I usually decry the whole excuses tangent - who cares, anyway? - these excuses are ones that actually warm the cockles of my devious heart and are seriously depriving me of sleep most nights lately.

The first excuse is my new vinyl record - yep, I'm going all old school black wax - which finally hits streets (and hopefully decks) from today.

It's out through my label IF? in conjunction with Gynoid Audio. The record itself is called 'Metropolis How?' and is actually a track I made under my hack Little Nobody alias almost 2 years ago , but comes with fresh remixes by the inestimable James Ruskin, Justin Berkovi and DJ Hi-Shock.

It's already got support from people like Luke Slater, Laurent Garnier, Chris Liebing, Ade Fenton, Dave Clarke, Tommy Four Seven, Ben Sims, Ken Ishii, Perc, Len Faki and Trevor Rockcliffe.

Yep, I guess you could call this techno. Maybe.

Check out the sample sounds HERE.

The other time-waster is the sub-editing of the novel I've been working on for - well, forever, basically.


There are a few are these projects tucked under various beds in Japan and Australia, but this particular one is called 'Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat' and is actually going to be published by the way cool cats at Another Sky Press in the USA once we finish the edit. This should (hopefully!) be done by June.

Oh yeah, and the cool cover is by the very awesome Scott Campbell.

You can read the first 2 chapters online for free HERE - just be aware that there've been substantial edits since then and the new version is a helluva lot tighter. I think.

Maybe.

In the meantime, if you're bored, here's the video clip we did for the original mix of 'Metropolis How?'...

Domo Arigato, Mr. Robota

Some things don't change, like my penchant for things robotic - no real surprise then that the name of my new Little Nobody vinyl EP out today through IF? is 'Robota'.

However there's another trace element influence here. Nope, it's not related to the project by Star Wars art director Doug Chiang - I only just discovered that today on Google while doing hack research for this piece - nor the freaky 'educational and therapeutic devices' promoted here. It isn't even a wayward misspelled homage to Styx's 1983 classic 'Mr Roboto'.

Instead I nicked the name off Wikipedia.

Yep, you read right. I was checking out the entry on robots and the origin of the word, and deep in there I discovered this pearler: "The word robota means literally work, labor or serf labor, and figuratively 'drudgery' or 'hard work' in Czech and many Slavic languages. Traditionally the robota was the work period a serf had to give for his lord, typically 6 months of the year."

Being a lazy git myself with an eye forever on the couch, I decided to call the track 'Robota'. Nothing deeper than that, I'm afraid - though we can always pretend otherwise and toot some people's horns.

For this baby I originally shanghaied into the arrangement Japanese producer Toshiyuki Yasuda - one of Si Begg's favorite musicians who'd just finished working at the time with Señor Coconut, a.k.a Atom Heart - to do his bloody brilliant robot-style vocoder vocals as Robo*Brazileira.

"Robo*Brazileira is my singing alias, a fictitious Brazilian robot," Yasuda patiently explained to the unenlightened (in this case myself) at the time. "For me, the robot is one view-point with which to see ourselves as humans. To see us more cautiously, I think I must have external eyes."

With an attitude and moniker like that I had no real choice but to get the laddie involved.

Then to do their own wind-up remixes of the original combo we first lassooed in the insanely respected Mr. Steve Stoll - a man who's released motorized techno over the years on labels like Proper NYC, NovaMute, Djax-Up-Beats and Harthouse.

I was a huge fan in the '90s and first interviewed him just over a decade ago; fact is that the guy continues to steer my personal techno inclinations pretty darned effectively and I love his drums - both real and programmed.

We also got on board the irrepressible Dave Tarrida, whose output through his old label Sativae and since then through Tresor, Musick, Neue Heimat, Dancefloor Killers and Feinwerk has been my repeated refill cuppa tea for years; his recent stuff continues to kick my butt about.


Rounding out the remixing troupe is Germany's Cem Oral (a.k.a Jammin' Unit/Ultrahigh/4E), the genius behind Cube 40's 'Bad Computa' and Air Liquide's 'Robot Wars'.

How on earth (or indeed off it) couldn't I include him here?

Finally, I indulged in a wee bit of the tyranny-of-distance e-mail mud wrestling thing, this time between Tokyo and Sydney, as me and fellow Aussie Simon Nielsen (DJ Hi-Shock of Elektrax notoriety) did the final mix.

There's a ripe possibility we'd together like to intimate that this record is machine-based disco-funk-tech for the next decade - the promo propaganda sheet says precisely that - then suggest you should hop online and order the wax now, since it's available from today here (surprise, surprise)... but the fact remains that none of these musos, who are also mates of mine, would be so pretentiously narcissistic. They're cool individuals with a great sense of humour and a definite interest in music for music's sake.

So instead, for shameless promotional reasons of a more ulterior bent, I gathered together all the boys involved in the vinyl remixes and bounced around some silly robot-related queries.

Far from earth-shattering, completely self-indulgent and occasionally obscure, this waffling conversation can be online at the Fun in the Murky website.

IF100: 15 Years of IF?

This baby's been a long time coming.

Celebrating the 100th IF? Records release and exactly 15 years of the label on the job, with some of the original Melbourne (Australia) artists plus brand new ones from the same city – and a wealth of internationals remixing their tunes.

With IF100, think new material by ZEN PARADOX and TR-STORM, who appeared on the first ever IF? release, the Zeitgeist compilation in 1995. Then add G3, aka GUYVER 3, who had the first solo artist release (Perception Camera) through IF? in 1996. Sprinkle in some LITTLE NOBODY (first appearance on Zeitgeist 2 in 1996), ISNOD (who designed the Zeitgeist 3 cover in 1997 and featured on Reaction Hero in 2001), plus SCHLOCK TACTILE (Reaction Hero), SON OF ZEV (one of the IF? live stars in the ‘90s and ‘00s) and DJ FODDER – responsible for the 'Cocaine Speaking' phenomenon conjured up in 1999 and since remixed over 30 times by Mijk van Dijk, Dave Tarrida, DJ Hi-Shock, Pocket, Captain Funk, Jason Leach, etc, etc.

Then fold in brand new stuff by the storming, reasonably more recent Melbourne posse that includes excellent artists like BEN MILL, ENCLAVE, ALKAN, CRAIG McWHINNEY, KODA, ELEKTRONAUTS, VERONICA du LAC, CONVERSATIONAL DENTURES, DICK DRONE, RYSH PAPROTA and KULTRUN.

As icing on the proverbial cake we’ve added in some rather juicy remixes from PATRICK PULSINGER, BILL YOUNGMAN, SHIN NISHIMURA, SECRET SURFER, DSICO, SETTEE OF INDUSTRY, LEON NAGANT M1895 and DJ WARP, plus a Little Nobody remix of E383 and a Chairman of the Board mix of TALL TREES.

TRACK-LIST:

1. Isnod ‘Pripyat’
2. DJ Fodder ‘Cocaine Speaking’ (Dsico remix)
3. Craig McWhinney ‘Confined Spaces’
4. Andrez Bergen ‘Merian Cooper’
5. Funk Gadget ‘Blah Blah’ (Patrick Pulsinger remix)
6. Little Nobody ‘Get Away From It All’ (AB- Mix)
7. Ben Mill ‘Dance Floor Confessions Of A Stalker’
8. TR-Storm ‘Cylitic’
9. Koda ‘Snipper’
10. Little Nobody ‘Poiseworks’ (Shin Nishimura remix)
11. Kultrun ‘Underground’
12. Tall Trees ‘Broken Friend (Hurting Youself)’ (Chairman of the Board remix)
13. Alkan ‘In Your Skin’
14. Son Of Zev ‘Swelter’
15. Enclave ‘Pulse Overture’
16. Zen Paradox ‘Mindmelt’
17. Rysh Paprota ‘Her Flew’
18. G3 ‘Onigoroshi’
19. Little Nobody feat. Robo*Brazileira ‘Robota’ (Elektronauts remix)
20. Veronica du Lac ‘Because It Pays So Thin’ (Bill Youngman remix)
21. Jungle Taitei ‘Taitei Drums’ (Secret Surfer remix)
22. Little Nobody vs. Magnet Toy ‘Depth Charge’ (DJ Warp remix)
23. Koda ‘Tilb’
24. E383 ‘Radion 2’ (Little Nobody remix)
25. Kultrun ‘Drift Away’ (Andrez Bergen remix)
26. Schlock Tactile ‘Kouture Krash’
27. Little Nobody ‘Metropolis How?’ (Settee Of Industry remix)
28. Dick Drone ‘Wash’ (Mix 2)
29. Conversational Dentures ‘Suicidio’ (Leon Nagant M1895 Remix)
30. Curvaceous Crustacean ‘An Electric Blanket & Minimum Chips’

Look out for this baby exclusive to Juno Download on December 15, 2009.

Little Nobody muzak @ Soundcloud

Latest tracks by Little Nobody

New, cheapskate IF? website*

*well, it's free! Go figure.

Anyway, our cantankerous teenage record label, IF?, now has a new online home to match up with the new logo and new artists involved from Japan, Melbourne, and elsewhere.

We're hitting out shortly with new stuff by Alone Together, Little Nobody, Koda, Bitch Shift, Son Of Zev, ABiS, Aneb, Alkan, and others.

Click here if you can really be bothered checking it out. There are other, more grandiose things happening online and out there in the real world.

The new logo, by the by, was hacked together by our exceptionally talented mate, Ant Orange, over at the Dead Channel collective. He's also an extremely hot muso. Love the guy!